His eyes got wide. “What? You are?”
“Yes! This is ridiculous. You’re just two people who—you love each other—but you let your egos keep you apart.” I grabbed my car keys and started toward the door, wondering if he would stop me. Kind of hoping he would. But he didn’t. So off I went. I wanted to unify the family because we were creating one, but all the way over there, I was thinking, Crap. What did I just do? I was certain John wouldn’t be mean to me in any way, but I had no idea what I was going to say when I pressed the buzzer on the gate. There was a long pause. I decided to count to 30 and then drive away.
… 25… 26… 27… 28
I jumped when I heard a gruff voice say, “Hello?”
“Hi.”
“Who’s this?”
“It’s your daughter-in-law.”
“Oh.”
There was another pause, and then the gate creaked open. As I pulled up in front of the house, he came out. Feeling both butterflies and the baby in my midsection, I got out of my car and hugged my father-in-law. I didn’t care if he hugged back, but after a startled second or two, he did. He was clearly taken aback. I knew I had to smother him with love or this was going to go all bad.
“I’m holding your grandchild,” I told him.
He invited me inside and made me a cup of tea. We talked for a little while. Small talk. Nothing too intense. Everything that wasn’t being said was intense enough. I didn’t want to add to it. When I got back in the car a little while later, I called my husband, and he picked up immediately.
“What happened?”
“He was sweet,” I said, playing it cool, like we were buds now, though that might have been stretching it. “He said he’d come to visit.”
“He did?” His tone had an unmistakable note of I’ll believe that when I see it.
But a few weeks later, John showed up at Paisley Park. He drove up outside, and my husband did that thing you do when you’re trying not to run, but you have to run, and so you end up kind of trotting very fast. He hustled out to the parking lot where his father stood leaning against his car. He was not much taller than his son and only a little less stylish. I saw the way they hugged each other. That made me hang back so they could talk privately for a few minutes, and then I went out to say hello.
John smiled as I approached. “So ya got married, huh?”
The small talk was a little stiff, but not bad, considering how long it had been since they’d seen each other.
“I’m gonna go inside,” I said, rubbing my arms, pretending I was going in because it was cold. As I walked away, I could hear them laughing and bantering, and it sounded warm and hopeful, but less than fifteen minutes after he arrived, John was gone.
“What happened?” I asked my husband as he came back to the door.
“He said he’s gonna come by another time.”
“Well… yay!” I said. “Right?”
He smiled and nodded. But it didn’t happen. I never saw John again. The Purple House is gone now. I heard that Prince had it demolished after his father’s death, but when I peeked inside Studio B during my last visit to Paisley Park, I saw John’s picture there, and it broke my heart a little.
Things started to go sideways not long after that brief visit from my father-in-law. I woke up early one morning and realized my husband hadn’t come home. I called the studios, the office, every number I had. He didn’t answer. It was an ungodly hour, but I called one of the security people to go check on him. I laid down again, but I had this vaguely off feeling. The security person called me a little while later, speaking Spanish so my husband wouldn’t know what they were telling me. They were taking him to the emergency room. They’d found him passed out. There was vomit on the floor. He was saying it was because he took aspirin with red wine, which made zero sense to me.
I ran to the garage and drove to the hospital. At the ER reception desk I said, “I’m his wife. What’s happening?” A doctor came to take me inside. He told me they pumped his stomach and gave him the charcoal treatment they give a person for an overdose. The moment I got inside the room, I threw my arms around him. “What happened? Are you all right?”
He jumped off the gurney. Jumped. Like, sprang. Full of energy, like always.
“Let’s go,” he said.
I followed him to the car, peppering him with questions. “What were you thinking? Why would you—”
“I had a migraine,” he said. “I took too many pills.”
“Too many aspirin.”
“Yes.”
“Why? How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know. My head hurt.” He turned and said to his security person, “Go back and get those records. This is private.”
On the way home, I sat in the back of the car with my heart pounding, my hands spread protectively over my stomach. I kept saying, “I don’t understand this. I don’t get it.”
He kissed my hands and told me not to worry.